Made By Mike : DREAM BOX – Dual IC Muff & DIST II

Mike Livesley is a builder from Bristol, England. Mike’s Youtube demo career preceded my own by some years and he was certainly one of the strongest inspirations and reasons I made demo attempts of my own back in 2008. So I have a lot to thank Mike for and I’m glad and honoured to be able to call him a friend, albeit by proxy as we’ve never met outside of the virtual world.

Mike builds some great pedals. Recently he unleashed this treasure on the world: a dual pedal featuring his take on the MXR Distortion II and late 70’s IC Muff. This combination, according to Mike’s research, was used in the Siamese Dream sessions to get the tones that are the sonic identity of that album and many other albums that followed by other inspired artists. I think Mike has succeeded in making this sound accessible with the Dream Box as it absolutely rips. There’s also a helpful Mids control on the IC Muff side (maybe optional, please check with Mike) and then there’s the case art – wow.

More from Mike himself:

“This is the Dream Box, two of my most popular pedals in one Dual Drive box giving you bags of great guitar sounds at your feet. On the left side is my MadeByMike ’78 IC Muff pedal (click link for details), my favourite Muff variant, capable of big fat rhythm guitars (dead on the Siamese Dream guitar tone, Corgan used an original IC Muff on the record), flutey lead guitar tones, overdrive and distortion sounds, truly a versatile and addictive pedal. On the right we have my modern interpretation of the MXR Distortion II pedal, the MadeByMike Dist2, a fully featured and very unique sounding distortion/overdrive pedal from yesteryear overlooked until recently, when it was revealed that this was the missing component in reproducing those Siamese Dream lead guitar tones by the man himself. Featuring Filter (treble content) and Resonance (bass and lower midrange thump and gain) controls in tandem with your more standard Drive and Volume, the Dist2 is capable of providing you with a wealth of textures including of course the searcing incendiary lead tones from Siamese Dream when combined with the IC Muff side.

Both sides of the Dream Box are wired for true bypass, and can be used independently, or together. It’s been a real labour of love re-engineering the Distortion II circuit to be used on a 9V pedalboard friendly supply, removing the electronic switching and shrinking it down, but I think it’s been worth it. The moment I connected my Dist2 prototype into a pedal chain with one of my IC Muffs, I started grinning and I haven’t stopped yet. Both these pedals just make you want to play Guitar.”